cat trauma

[calimac]

Yesterday was another traumatic day for the cats as we had the local Mythopoeic Society group over for a meeting. Both cats huddled in fear in the morning as I brought out the dreaded vacuum cleaner. Pippin spent the meeting tucked in between two large boxes in B's workroom closet, with his little face peering out: so cute. He didn't look traumatized, though, and darted around in his usual manner afterwards.

Though he's generally more people-averse than Severian was, at least he didn't replicate Seven's most renowned kittenhood feat: caught in the living room when guests arrived, he darted under the couch, staying there as the entire meeting took place above him, and when it was over refusing to emerge for another six hours.

At 2 pm as the meeting was scheduled to start, nobody was here, and the carrots, Hershey's mint kisses, and garlic dip on the table were beginning to look lonely. Soon enough two cars disgorged five of the usual members, and we had a lively time discussing the Narnia movie. General agreement that numerous plot problems and other awkwardnesses in the film could easily have been solved if somebody had just read the book and tried what it said. I presented my theory that "Andrew Adamson" on this film was a pseudonym for "Peter Jackson," the film being overblown and tiresome in much the same way as Jackson's LOTR epics, with some of the same scenery and the same huge extra-textual battle, and quite unlike the snappy, clever Shrek films with Adamson's name on them.

It looks like this film was successful enough that sequels will be made. If they film all the Narnia books one per year, the last one will come out in December 2011. Can't wait, can you? I wonder if I can maintain interest that long. It took me 5 1/2 books to get too tired of Harry Potter to continue, but only 3 movies was enough for me.

Comments

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

While I expected no less than curmudgeonly dislike from you, who treat films made from books the way a fundamentalist treats "extra-Biblical worldly philosophies," I rather liked the damn thing. I would happily have foregone the big wolf-chase scenes, but thought the battle was well handled. (Yes, Lewis gets through it in a paragraph. That's one of the major differences between a movie and a book: a movie can't simply summarize the big action scene. And no, the Witch shouldn't have had mad ninja combat skills; that was just silly.)

On the other hand, once the wolf chase stuff was decided upon, the fox was a clever way to tie things together a bit, while dramatizing the Witch's main power in much the way the Christmas party -- a bit too complex, I think, for the movie -- did.

Actually my biggest complaint was not something added, but something added that took too long -- the opening sequence. I think it was indeed necessary to dramatize the idea of the children being evacuated from the Blitz, because most modern children really wouldn't get it otherwise; but I think it could have been done in about two minutes. On the other hand, they did a good job (imo) of establishing the basic characters of the four Pevensies in that sequence.

Another good/bad thing: the picture of the father. Done right, this would have made a really touching echo with the shattered picture of Tumnus's father when they finally all get into Narnia. Alas, by making Edmund the one devoted to dad's picture, they screwed it up royally: the only possible reaction he could have had would have been to feel sympathy for Tumnus and regret (maybe even turn from) what he was about to do, and that would have derailed the entire rest of the story. So it should have been Lucy.

And the kid who plays Edmund is dynamite. He goes through the whole range of emotions he needs to and is -- to me -- utterly convincing.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

While I expected no less than curmudgeonly dislike from you, who treat films made from books the way a fundamentalist treats "extra-Biblical worldly philosophies

That's an awfully silly thing to say, pardner. That's like accusing me of having something against food because I've never found a McDonald's that I liked.

I fulminate against these adaptations not because I'm opposed to adaptations, but because these examples are so bad. Make a good one and I'll like it. In fact, here's two: good film adaptations of good books, that capture the spirit of the originals: The Princess Bride and the John Schlesinger Cold Comfort Farm. Even of more serious books that are closer to my heart, good adaptations are possible. I liked the BBC radio Lord of the Rings, and the animated Watership Down may have lacked the book's soaring intensity but was perfectly servicable and not at all objectionable.

One thing I will not do is indulge in the desperate tactic of parched reviewers who praise the lousy because it isn't as bad as the execrable.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

One thing I will not do is indulge in the desperate tactic of parched reviewers who praise the lousy because it isn't as bad as the execrable.

But am I then "parched" because I actually liked it? To me it kept all the essentials of the book (which is more than I can say for Jackson's LotRilogy), and, more importantly, the magical feel of the book.

The look -- which, yes, it has greatly in common with said Jacksonian opi: but then Narnia and Middle-earth are, to my mind, very much the same kind of fantasy worlds, even if one is far better planned than the other; I mean that they have very similar look and feel to me: probably because of that whole "Northernness" thing -- is right for me, also, and there was not one moment where I felt the producers had put in a special effect just because they could. Indeed, many of the SFX which could have been Big Spectaculars weren't -- the Witch's stoning power, for example, is way downplayed visually.

But you and I (I think) want very different things from movies-made-from-books. To me what mattered, and matters, is that the heart of the movie was recognizeably the heart of the book -- again, something that I don't feel was true of Jackson's films, visual feast though they were.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

But am I then "parched" because I actually liked it?

Not necessarily. I meant to say that I won't do it, not that you had.

But the more I see the film praised with "could've been worse" arguments like: hey, look, they actually toned down some of the SFX! the more I'll wonder.

To me what mattered, and matters, is that the heart of the movie was recognizeably the heart of the book

OK, it had the heart of the book. But not the soul. I find that more important.